Individualists Tending to the Wild (, ITS) is a self-defined eco-extremist group that emerged in Mexico in 2011. Mexican authorities have attributed some acts of violence to it, but most of the attacks claimed by the group have been denied after judicial investigations and attributed to other groups or crimes other than terrorism. The lack of a task of contrasting information by the media has led to any violent action claimed by ITS reaching public opinion.; ; ;
Ideology On February 3, 2016, ITS posted a statement on a blog called Maldición Eco-extremista. In the post, it defined itself as "eco-extremist", accusing scientific and technological progress of being responsible for the devastation of ecosystems and the development of a civilization that distances itself from nature. They represent an opposite of a hypercivilized society that, nurtured by anarchist ideals, see in the annihilation of the agents of technological development a means to achieve the ideal of the perfect primitive man. To reverse the technological progress that they see as a process of degradation they announced that they would carry out forceful acts against those it had identified as responsible, without remorse. The group assured that it had begun its terrorist activities in 2011, sending letter bombs to university teachers who were dedicated to teaching nanotechnology and other related sciences in various university centers in Mexico.
The methodology of these first actions resembled that of Ted Kaczynski, who was the group's foremost inspiration. However, other neo-luddist or anarcho-primitivist groups are critical and apparently came to put themselves in contact with Kaczynski himself, who in early 2012 wrote a scathing letter against ITS for its naive proposal for revolutionary action and a lax analysis of social movements throughout history.
In 2014, ITS announced a new phase and issued a statement announcing its union with a dozen eco-anarchist groups.
ITS claimed to have extended its influence from Mexico to several European and Latin American countries, including a presence in Chile and Brazil. This internationalization has not been corroborated by the facts and its presence has not been confirmed at present. The group does not appear on the list of international terrorist organizations of the European Council or in that of the US State Department.
During the early days of their existence, Individualists Tending to the Wild posted on a blog called War on Society delineating the differences between their beliefs and anarchism. They do not center their ideas and ideologies around the problem of authority, but rather humanity's distancing from nature. To illustrate this, they give family structures as an example; ITS does not take a problem with the power exercised within a given family as long as it practices what they deem a nomadic hunter-gatherer one. As a result, they do not oppose civilization for the same reasons that an anarcho-primitivist would.
A leader of the ITS claimed to have been influenced by the satanic fascist group the Tempel ov Blood.
Chronology Activity in Mexico On April 27, 2011, a package bomb exploded at the Polytechnic University of the Valley of Mexico in Tultitlán, State of Mexico, seriously injuring an employee. ITS claimed responsibility for the attack as the beginning of its terrorist activity, manufacturing and sending incendiary devices to various researchers in university centers in Mexico, although most of the packages either did not explode or were neutralized.
At the beginning of August, a second wave of attacks began when a package bomb detonated inside the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education. The scientist Armando Herrera Corral was injured in the legs, and became deaf as a consequence. Professor Alejandro Aceves López was also injured in the face and arms, and one of the splinters of the explosive punctured his lung. The Mexican judicial authorities attributed the attack to ITS. The next day, A suspicious package was located at CINVESTAV (a research center belonging to the National Polytechnic Institute) in Irapuato, Guanajuato. Members of the police specializing in handling explosives removed the device without it exploding. The bomb was aimed at the brother of the scientist injured in the explosion that occurred on August 9. A month later, a homemade explosive was located and deactivated at the Faculty of Higher Studies (FES) in Cuautitlán Izcalli. Although the same group claimed responsibility for the placement of this artifact on its blog, this claim has never been confirmed by the authorities, nor was this claim picked up by the media.
In a statement in September 2011, ITS announced that there would be silence and that it would not claim acts on a temporary basis. However, a month later a package bomb exploded inside a courier company, injuring three workers who had tampered with the package. The authorities blamed ITS, although the group has never claimed responsibility for this act. After these last events, ITS began to carry out one of the defining characteristics of this group, which is the claim of attacks in the media, which are later proven to not be its responsibility. In this way, on November 8, Ernesto Méndez Salinas, a UNAM investigator, was shot when he was returning home in his car. The crime, profusely claimed by ITS through messages to the media, which did not verify the information before publishing it, was later attributed by the authorities in charge of the investigation to a criminal gang unrelated to ITS. One month later, a letter bomb slightly wounded a professor at the Polytechnic University of Pachuca, in central Mexico. The attack was again claimed by ITS, causing concern among the educational community in that region. A year later, on February 21, 2013, a maintenance worker from the Mexican Postal Service, José Luis García Luna, was injured by opening a package bomb that was inside a mailbox, causing the explosion to fracture his hand and burn him. ITS claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Mexican judicial authorities did not confirm its responsibility.
After another period of inactivity, ITS announced in August 2014 its union with several eco-anarchist groups with pro-indigenous affinities, which reject the consequences of European colonization in America and point to it as the cause of all conflicts and damage to indigenous populations. Based on this vision, they understand that contemporary civilization is something alien and harmful that must be responded to with hostility. This group, renamed the Wild Reaction (, RS), had an ephemeral duration of only one year. In this phase, the group increased messages to the media, citing itself for attacks that turned out to be false claims. Thus, during the month of April 2015, this group claimed responsibility for a large number of attacks and vandalism against telecommunications properties and facilities, without the authorities officially confirming responsibility.
In 2016, the Maldición Eco-extremista blog was created, where extensive statements written in a far-fetched style were published. On February 8, two package bombs were sent to scientists at the headquarters of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in Zapopan, and at the National Council of Science and Technology, in Guadalajara, both in the state of Jalisco. The packages could not explode due to the lack of detonators. Days later, the Jalisco Attorney General's Office attributed the incident to ITS. In June of that year, ITS granted the first interview by email to the radio program Radio Fórmula after the murder of the Chief of Chemical Services of the Faculty of Chemistry of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). His death was claimed by the terrorist group with a firearm, but it was actually proven, during the judicial investigation, that the death was due to a stabbing in the course of an argument with a coworker.
The following year, in May 2017, ITS once again falsely claimed responsibility for a murder through an interview with a Radio Fórmula program. On this occasion, they claimed that alleged members of the organization murdered university student Lesvy Berlin Osorio in Ciudad Universitaria, in Mexico City. However, during the investigation, a security camera was accessed that had captured an argument between Lesvy Berlin and her boyfriend. In the recording, it is seen that the latter beats her and the autopsy determines that the student died from strangulation caused by a telephone cable. After this evidence, the authorities ruled out the terrorist attack and it was considered a death due to sexist violence. That same month of May 2017, a third interview with ITS was published in the Mexican political magazine in which they continued to claim this and other hypothetical terrorist actions, including three alleged murders (involving a bomb in the center of Torreón, and the murders of a MITHE official, and two campers while climbing Mount Tláloc, in Texcoco, the latter investigated by the authorities as armed robberies.) On July 14, a civilian, a 66 year old gardener who picked up a package in front of the Parroquia del Señor de la Misericordia was seriously injured by opening a bomb package disguised as a donation to the church in Gustavo A. Madero; the man suffered second and third degree burns to the abdomen and arms, as well as the loss of part of a finger and acoustic trauma. A press report from Attorney General's Office of Mexico City claimed the bomb was disguised as a box of cookies with the note "For the house of the Lord with all my heart". The authorities investigated the case, while a cell of the group claimed the attack days later.
The group also claimed a shooting attack against pilgrims on a highway near the municipality of El Marqués, in Querétaro, on March 21, 2017. A lot with several PVC pipes was set on fire in Ecatepec; the authorities indicated that it was the work of an act of vandalism; ITS took responsibility for the arson attack. They were also responsible for another arson attack that affected a cloth store in the same municipality. On October 18, a couple of individuals entered the Nuestra Señora del Carmen Catholic Church in Cuautitlán Izcalli, and one of them stabbed the priest Rubén Díaz Alcántara, who bled to death. ITS took responsibility for the attack, but the authorities confirmed that the homicide was due to a personal matter. On June 7, 2018, a fire affected a logging yard in Iztapalapa, firefighters were slow to put out the fire which destroyed several trucks and damaged nearby houses. ITS claimed responsibility but the authorities confirmed that it was due to an electrical failure. On July 15, members of ITS claimed the abandonment of an incendiary load in a Metrobús car in the Benito Juárez delegation. The car still with passengers was evacuated by the driver, material losses were recorded due to the fire, but the authorship of ITS was not confirmed. On December 28 of the same year, ITS was responsible for the detonation of a low intensity explosive in front of the “Power Center” shopping plaza in Coacalco.